Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chips are definitely a thing in the UK. Like French fries but usually chunkier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips
Which is called Fish and Chips in Canada, even though it's served with fries.
Same in the US
UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
51–60 of 93 posts
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#52Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chips are definitely a thing in the UK. Like French fries but usually chunkier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips
The chunkier fries are akin to what the US calls steak fries and are very common in the US as well.
That's gastro pub chips though, not chippy chips.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#54> "The work that we're doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today," says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge. > "This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal, it's going to be in the car charger you plug an EV into, it's going to be in the latest planes." Okay, but, we have 5G towers, c…
Come on, it’s the BBC - which has a much wider spectrum of audience than you and me.
Think with it a little - the statement “in the 5G tower” is intended to bring the context of this event closer to those who are not knowledgeable about this technology, but would nevertheless read the article. You and I may understand that the economies of scale don’t make sense yet - but they could, some day, if this technology succeeds, be relevant to the local neighborhood.
To many, the 5G tower is the most mystical, mysterious technology in their neighborhood - and indeed, the silicon ingots being manufactured this way would, eventually, find their way to the local neighborhood if this technology is successful.
It would probably have been more appropriate to say “some day these ingots will power the supercomputers in your pocket”, which would be an accurate statement - but that is a whole order of magnitude of different economic scale than in the industrialization of cell networks. Maybe it’d be more appropriate for the BBC writer to have said that satellites might one day benefit from space-grown silicon wafers - but that is still to distant to the Mom and Pop readership they’re targeting in these articles…
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#55> a heat shield named Pridwen after the legendary shield of King Arthur will be deployed to protect the spacecraft from the intense temperatures it will experience as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.
Why bring back the entire spacecraft and not just the finished product?
I'm also curious how they handle cooling the silicon, since dissipating heat in space is kind of difficult.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
No way. This is being done because there’s a predictable path to profitability. It’s not just random shot in the dark science you can sometimes see in academia. It’s just this path isn’t clear to us laymen… I know because launching into space isn’t something that will be done just for science
Hubble Space Telescope. James Webb Space Telescope.
I should’ve specified corporate vs. academia. Those telescopes clearly aren’t corporate. More akin to academia.
Corporations won’t go to space just for “science” and that is the case here.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#57I'm only YouTube-level informed on how silicon manufacturing works, but something that is, perhaps intentionally, not made clear to someone unfamiliar with the field is that this is not manufacturing chips in space. This is to grow the crystals only, the very first step in silicon chip manufacturing. This is how you get the ingot, then you slice it to get the wafers upon which the chips are built. The reason you woul…
If you've managed to find more details about what process exactly they're implementing I'd be glad to see it - I assumed plasma-based growth, since the BBC article mentions that it's a plasma that is at 1000C here (making heat dissipation less of a problem too), but if they're growing ingots that would usually be done from liquid silicon, which sounds like a mess in space. So are they doing plasma-growth of ingots (which I haven't heard of, but I haven't heard of many things), or are they bringing wafers up and growing ultra-pure layers on top... The website is not super clear on this from what I've seen.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
>this is not manufacturing chips in space *crisps It's from the UK.
Chips are definitely a thing in the UK. Like French fries but usually chunkier: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_and_chips
If you are lucky, you get triple-fried chips. Which are just as good/bad as they sound.
Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#59I'm curious what the thermal management system on this looks like. On one hand, vacuum being in essence a perfect insulator works in favor of keeping the silicon hot for the very long time it takes to pull a boule while requiring very little energy. On the other hand, you have to make sure the control electronics don't also heat up to 1000C. I'm also curious how you keep the molten silion separate from the crystal wi…
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Re: UK company sends factory with 1,000C furnace into space
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hubble Space Telescope. James Webb Space Telescope.
I should’ve specified corporate vs. academia. Those telescopes clearly aren’t corporate. More akin to academia. Corporations won’t go to space just for “science” and that is the case here.
That doesn't mean they're going to space for traditional profitability, though. The advertising budget is a classic example: none of those activities are profitable, but they alter market behaviour such that other parts of the company can make money.